Thursday, July 28, 2011

Totally NOT behind the scenes at Le Tour de France


After witnessing the crazy press hordes, photographers shouting at each other, and tales of friends being elbowed in the face in the finish line pit, I decided that the press pass for the Tour de France that allows "behind the scenes" access wasn't really so "behind the scenes" after all.  Here's a video from the photographer at Bicycling Magazine where Frank Schleck gets knocked off his bike by the crazed "behind the scenes" media who are scrambling to get a shot of the moment he hugs his brother after loosing the time-trial (and the Tour itself).

I like my freedom to roam and since this freedom is effectively restricted in the press area, I decided to scrap my press pass and big cameras to wonder around outside the lines and shoot  2011 Tour de France w/ an iPhone--as a fan/spectator. My goal was to convey what it's like to be a "normal person" without a press pass at the Tour de France.  How close can a fan get to the athletes, what's the vibe, and how fun, wacky, wild is it (fans are much more chill than the media)?

Here's a short gallery photos from the 2011 Tour de France:

2011 Tour de France iPhone Gallery - Images by Gregg Bleakney

4 comments:

  1. Great pics.  Did you use the default iPhone camera app to take the pictures, or something else?  Also, what post-processing did you do on them?

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  2. Gregg - great perspective. rings true from having gone to a few stages of the T0ur in the past. 

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  3. Hi Matt, I used the Hipstamatic app because it seems to have a quicker shutter response than the default app. I picked a lens/film filter combo--I think that they were the default for that app--and stuck with it. Besides some some basic exposure level adjustments in Aperture for a couple of the images, I have not done any post-processing with these images.

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  4. Tour is def. a pretty amazing thing to see--have you tried the Giro?

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